This invention relates in general to the field of supply chain, enterprise and site planning and, more particularly, to an object-oriented workflow for enterprise collaboration.
Supply chain, enterprise and site planning applications and environments are widely used by manufacturing entities for decision support and to help manage operations. Decision support environments for supply chain, enterprise, and site planning have evolved from single-domain, monolithic environments to multi-domain, monolithic environments. Conventional planning software applications are available in a wide range of products offered by various companies. These decision support tools allow entities to more efficiently manage complex manufacturing operations. However, supply chains are generally characterized by multiple, distributed and heterogenous planning environments. Thus, there are limits to the effectiveness of conventional environments when applied to the problem of supply chain planning due to monolithic application architectures. Further, these problems are exacerbated when there is no one xe2x80x9cownerxe2x80x9d of the entire supply chain.
It is desirable for the next evolutionary step for planning environments to establish a multi-domain, heterogenous architecture that supports products spanning multiple domains, as well as spanning multiple engines and products. The integration of the various planning environments into a seamless solution can enable inter-domain and inter-enterprise supply chain planning. Further, an important function provided by some planning applications is the optimization of the subject environment rather than simply tracking transactions. In particular, the RHYTHM family of products available from I2 TECHNOLOGIES provide optimization functionality. However, with respect to planning at the enterprise or supply chain level, many conventional applications, such as those available from SAP, use enterprise resource planning (ERP) engines and do not provide optimization.
The success or failure of an enterprise can depend to a large extent on the quality of decision making within the enterprise. Thus, decision support software, such as I2 TECHNOLOGIES"" RHYTHM family of products, that support optimal decision making within enterprises can be particularly important to the success of the enterprise. In general, optimal decisions are relative to the domain of the decision support where the domain is the extent of the xe2x80x9cworldxe2x80x9d considered in arriving at the decision. For example, the decision being made may be how much of a given item a factory should produce during a given time period. The xe2x80x9coptimalxe2x80x9d answer depends on the domain of the decision. The domain may be, for example, just the factory itself, the supply chain that contains the factory, the entire enterprise, or the multi-enterprise supply chain. (The latter two can be considered to be larger domains or multiple domains.) Typically, the larger the domain of the decision support, the more optimal the decision will be. Consequently, it is desirable for decision support software to cover ever larger domains in the decision making process. Yet, this broadening of coverage can create significant problems.
In accordance with the present invention, an object-oriented workflow for enterprise collaboration is disclosed that provides advantages over conventional supply chain, enterprise and site planning environments.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a computer implemented process for enterprise collaboration involves instantiating an object-oriented workflow where the object-oriented workflow comprises objects associated with activities to be performed within the workflow. The objects of the object-oriented workflow are then deployed across enterprise boundaries to nodes on which associated activities are to be performed. After deployment, the deployed objects are executed to provide multi-enterprise collaboration with the activities communicating data using objects that carry both data and behavior. Further, in one embodiment, the process further includes creating in-memory object models at nodes which objects executing at the nodes can access.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a computer implemented process is provided for data access and transformation for an object-oriented workflow. The process includes supporting communication of objects as a primary data format and supporting derived format objects built from underlying native data formats. Further, transformations are supported between native data formats, derived format objects and objects. The process further involves communicating information between activities of an executing workflow using objects and derived format objects and using transformations between native data formats, derived format objects and objects.
A technical advantage of the present invention is the implementation of object-oriented workflows that communicate information between activities using objects. This provides enhanced capabilities as the objects carry both data and behavior.
Another technical advantage of the present invention is the local implementation of in-memory object models that can be accessed by activities during execution. This access can include creating, modifying and destroying objects.
A further technical advantage is a data access and manipulation framework which provides considerable flexibility for communicating data between activities and workflows for multi-enterprise collaboration.
Additional technical advantages should be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the following figures, descriptions, and claims.